The Advocate's Wife (24 page)

Inspector Box looked out of the single window in the upstairs room where Amelia Garbutt had stored her few secrets. The room was a small attic, and contained an iron bedstead with a mattress, a chest of drawers, and an empty wardrobe.

‘Moravia Court … Did you ever know a young man called Henry Colbourne, Mrs Warlock? I recall that he, too, lived in Moravia Court. Mr Shulbrede, the watchmaker, told me.’

‘Yes, I remember him well enough. He was murdered by robbers not far from here, in Garlickhythe. But it was twenty-five
years ago that I knew him, and I had my hands full here in those days with the shop, and my new husband to see to. The Colbournes were nice, quiet people. I remember poor Henry well enough, but I didn’t really know him.’

Box turned his attention once again to the deed box. He opened the sealed envelope. It contained a letter, written on high quality paper. Jessie Warlock watched Box silently as he read it to himself 

A valuable reward … Box glanced at the stolid Jessie Warlock, who sat on a chair near the bed, still watching him. The light through the square window reflected off the many rings that she wore. Amelia Garbutt may have risen to being a lady’s-maid, but she had not forgotten the days when a young woman carried her wealth around on her person as something tangible. So when an opportunity for a little ladylike blackmail came her way, she had thought of a diamond necklace.

Jessie Warlock’s sonorous voice broke the silence.

‘Have you found what you were looking for?’

‘I wasn’t looking for this piece of paper in particular,’ Box replied ‘but I’m not in the least surprised to have found it here.’

Amelia Garbutt, lady’s-maid, had not, after all, broken away from temptation, as Jessie Warlock had asserted. The Garbutts had once lived perilously near the criminal fringes of society, and, when greed came to tempt her, Miss Garbutt had succumbed. And so she had died.

Wednesday, 19 October, 1892. A bright morning in Queen Adelaide Gate. It was noticeably hot for the time of the year, and a water-cart crawled along the wide carriage-way, sprinkling water on the dust, and spraying the dry pavements. Breakfast was over and cleared, and the footman, Stevens, had carried the morning’s post into the drawing-room.

Lady Porteous had taken extra care over her toilet that morning, so that her dark handsome features seemed even more striking, and her black hair had acquired an added gloss. She wore a morning dress of cream silk, artfully cut to suit her years without seeming too lightweight for her commanding
personality
.

‘Thank you, Stevens. Put the letters on the table in the window seat. I shall take coffee in here at ten o’clock.’

As the drawing-room door closed behind him, Adelaide Porteous swayed a little, and steadied herself by touching the mantelpiece with her fingertips. Her eyes caught the formal photograph of her eldest daughter, taken by Eliot and Fry: Mary Jane, Countess of Avoncourt.

The document was to be a signed statement from her husband, admitting that he had wronged Gideon Raikes, and
would drop all proceedings against him. Did that man think for one moment that she would compromise Sir William Porteous’s integrity by asking for such a document? Did he think that she was so craven as to beg favours from anyone?

Terror
!
Without that document Raikes would destroy her eldest daughter, and bring the whole Porteous family to obloquy and ruin. Lydia, too, would have to withdraw from Society, though dear, good John Bruce would never leave her side.

Terror
!
What would become of Diana, her baby, her little fashion-plate, a beguiling flirt, just ready to look about for a husband? Ruined. She would withdraw into her shell, sharing her mother’s disgrace. Ruined. Ruined. Baby Diana.

What was the name of that fateful dirge? Why did it ring so potently in her memory? Yes – she recalled it now. It was called
In
Time
of
Pestilence.
 

She shuddered involuntarily. Objects came back into focus. The great mirror in its gilt frame, the marble statues, the
ornaments
on the mantelpiece, flanking the ornate French clock. Could Stevens and the others see the terror, she wondered? Could they smell it? Would Lardner—?

She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and saw the terror in her own eyes. And behind the terror, reassuring and bolstering her flagging courage, she saw the dull and deadly glow of an implacable hatred. The Astleys had clung to their own definitions of virtue, and had gone their own way. Their kind of virtue embraced a relentless defence of the family’s embattled honour, compassion towards friends, and
ruthlessness
to enemies.

Father had finished up penniless, a pensioner on his
increasingly
affluent son-in-law. He had lived on in shabby gentility at
Astley Court, his debts paid, and his honour satisfied. And there he had perished, when the old house had burned down one still summer night. He had bequeathed her nothing but his stubborn will to survive. She must honour that bequest at any cost.

Sergeant Knollys poked the somnolent office fire into life, and sat down in his chair. For the second time that morning, he glanced through a sheaf of documents that he and Inspector Box had assembled. There were letters from the curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum, from Lord Port Royal, and from the civic dignitaries of Sunderland, all confirming Gideon Raikes’s alibis for the fifth and sixth of September.

No – that was the wrong word. They were not alibis. They were simply confirmations of long-standing engagements that Raikes had duly fulfilled. There were other documents, some in French, and one in Dutch, with translations attached. They proved beyond doubt that Gideon Raikes was abroad before Henry Colbourne’s death in 1867. Raikes had played no part in the murders of Henry Colbourne or Amelia Garbutt.

Knollys heard the heavy, limping tread of Superintendent Mackharness crossing the floor above. The gas bracket in the ceiling shook and shivered, and for a second or two the flame burnt yellow. Knollys had reached the vestibule in time to see Mackharness appear at the top of the stairs.

‘Up here, Sergeant, if you please,’ he said, turned on his heel and went back into his dim, mildewed office.

Inspector Box scarcely glanced at Knollys as the sergeant came into Mackharness’s office. The words of a conversation that he had just had with the superintendent were still ringing in his ears.

‘I feel betrayed, sir – deceived … All those cosy little asides in various courtrooms, all those knowing confidences – and all the time Sir William Porteous was laughing up his sleeve! I should have detected something wrong in his manner, but I didn’t. And on the other side, Gideon Raikes led me carefully up the garden path – damn it, sir, the two of them were felons, and killers!’

Superintendent Mackharness had held up one of his big
hands to stem Box’s flow of words. Box had glimpsed the genuine concern in the old officer’s eyes.

‘When did you first realize the truth, Box? About Porteous, I mean.’

‘It was in the Cigar Divan, sir, when Sadie revealed to me that the man in Addy’s Dining-Rooms – the man who denied ever having owned that fatal watch – was Porteous. The whole thing sort of swung into place. The Colbourne affair, and then the
business
of Amelia Garbutt.’

‘Well, Box, Gideon Raikes certainly led you a merry dance, but I doubt very much whether Sir William Porteous ever
deliberately
betrayed your trust. In any case, you shouldn’t ever trust anyone in this business! Don’t you know that, yet? As for Porteous – well, I’ll have a few words to say to you about him, once Sergeant Knollys has come up here.’

As soon as Knollys had drawn up a chair to the table, Superintendent Mackharness began to speak.

‘Now, Inspector Box, and you, Sergeant Knollys, I want you to listen carefully to what I’m going to say. First, I think you’ve proved beyond all possibility of doubt that Gideon Raikes had nothing to do with the killing of Henry Colbourne and Amelia Garbutt. I’ve listened to what you’ve had to say, and I’ve
scrutinized
all the documents. Raikes is a bird ripe for plucking, Officers, and when the time comes, we’ll – well, we’ll send his feathers flying. But in those two instances, he was entirely
innocent
.’

Mackharness cleared his throat, and unconsciously drummed on the table with his heavy, spatulate fingers.

‘But now, we come to the matter of Sir William Porteous, QC. You have asked me this morning, Box, to apply for a warrant of arrest. I’m going to ask you now to repeat your reasons for asking me to take that step.’

‘Sir, I have proof positive that Sir William Porteous lied to his sister, telling her that he had seen Gideon Raikes in the train at Bishop’s Longhurst, which we know could not have been so. He was trying to suggest that his old enemy was in the vicinity of Heath House when Amelia Garbutt was murdered. Sir William Porteous was present at the reception, and had previously
written to the victim, appointing an assignation, and quite clearly offering her a bribe to buy her silence about something to his disadvantage that had come to her knowledge. I have Sir William Porteous’s letter to Amelia Garbutt as proof. A necklace that we know he bought at Messrs Asprey’s was found around the murdered woman’s neck—’

‘A curious business, that, Box. But it’s a damning link, none the less. Pray continue.’

‘Late last night, sir, we received a telegraphic message from Sergeant Bickerstaffe, in Essex. He thinks he’s unearthed a
reliable
witness, an old man who saw Sir William Porteous dragging the woman’s body up to the canal. I’d need to
interview
this witness myself, but it seems pretty conclusive, sir. Sergeant Bickerstaffe says the man lives in a cottage near the plantation of Heath House, and knows Sir William well by sight.’

Superintendent Mackharness folded his big hands on the table in front of him. Box and Knollys watched him as he pondered the inspector’s words. Presently, he sighed, and sat back in his chair.

‘Very well, Box. I can see the reasonableness of your
argument
, and you’re quite right, of course. There is a case. A very strong case, in the matter of Amelia Garbutt. So I’ll do as you say, and apply for a warrant of arrest. Although I’d counsel caution and discretion, I want you to pursue this matter without favour, and without fear.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Not at all. But tell me, Inspector, do you want to serve that warrant yourself? You were very friendly with Sir William Porteous for quite a number of years, and I think that when your righteous indignation has cooled a little, you may recollect some of the regard you had for him. I can send someone else down to Chelford Grange, if you like.’

Box suddenly recalled the lonely grave in Essex, and his own silent vow to bring the murderer of Amelia Garbutt to justice. Whatever the cost to himself, he would fulfil that vow.

‘That’s very kind of you, sir, but no. I think this must be
something
that I do myself.’

‘As you wish. Now, it’s the nineteenth today. I won’t get a warrant before Friday. What I suggest, Box, is that you visit Sir William Porteous at this convalescent home – what’s it called? – Chelford Grange. Talk to him about Henry Colbourne and Amelia Garbutt, and see what he says to you in reply. It could be quite interesting, you know. Go down there tomorrow, or Friday.’

Mackharness made a little gesture of dismissal, and the two officers rose to their feet. Box tried in vain to stifle a sigh of relief, which brought a rather wintry but genuine smile to the
superintendent’s
stern features.

‘Well done, Box,’ he said. ‘And you, Sergeant Knollys. I’m … I’m very gratified. That’s all, I think, for the moment. Good morning.’

Later that morning, Lady Porteous changed into an afternoon dress of mauve silk, and took luncheon at home with her friend Lady Kennedy, whom she treated to a description of the new schemes of decoration at Buckingham Palace. Lady Kennedy drank coffee with her in the drawing-room, and took her leave at two o’clock.

During the course of the afternoon, she saw Lardner going about his various tasks between the snug and the library. They spoke briefly, and she told him, with a little too much
nonchalance
, perhaps, that she would not be dining that day, and intended to retire to her private sitting-room upstairs for most of the evening.

At four o’clock, she took some light refreshment on a tray in the drawing-room, then went upstairs to her sitting-room, where she closed and locked the door. She sat at her desk, a faded gilt affair by Hepplewhite, salvaged from her childhood home. She opened a leather cylinder and extracted a long rolled parchment document.

‘In the Name of God, Amen. I, Adelaide Caroline Porteous declare this to be my last Will and Testament …’ Bequests to the two elder girls, a special endowment for Diana, the rest to her husband absolutely. She returned the document to its cylinder and locked it away again in the Hepplewhite desk.

She passed through into her private bathroom, where she was violently sick.

The evening brought a dulling mist that swirled around the twinkling lamps in Queen Adelaide Gate. Lady Porteous had very successfully avoided both Lardner and the household servants as she moved from room to room intent upon her preparations for the visit to Gideon Raikes.

The third post of the day had brought a brief, unsigned note telling her to enter Raikes’s house through the narrow gate in George Yard, to the rear of Grosvenor Square, and to tap on the French window directly facing her. She was to skulk like a thief into the house of her implacable enemy.

She donned a dark cloak with an attached hood, and slipped quietly into her dressing-room. The leisurely, rather comforting sound of a passing carriage came to her ears from the road below. She opened the bottom drawer of a tallboy, and took from it a polished wooden case. It had once belonged to her father, but she had taken charge of it many years earlier, when she feared that he might try to terminate his woes by suicide.

Women were not supposed to know anything about firearms, but she did. Her father – the vigorous, madcap father of her youth – had let her fire one of the first breech-loading pistols on his twelve-yard range. She had learned not to flinch at the recoil, learned how to brace the muscles of arm and shoulder, how to squeeze the trigger steadily … ‘That’s it, Addie! Good girl!’ She could hear her father now, as she stood in the half-light of her dressing-room.

She opened the polished wooden case, and took from it a .38 Colt revolver, which she loaded from its accompanying drum of cartridges. When Raikes saw that pointing at him he would surrender the damning letter! She slipped the neat weapon into a canvas reticule that she had brought with her for the purpose.

She left 4 Queen Adelaide Gate by the garden exit, and began her journey to Grosvenor Square. She had convinced herself that no one had seen her leave the house, and that no one knew where she was going.